Oscar Pistorius could have run with longer blades at the Paralympics, says prosthetics supplier

A clinical prosthetics specialist for the company that supplies both Oscar
Pistorius and Alan Oliveira with their running blades says Pistorius would
have been perfectly within his rights to experiment with longer blades at
the Paralympics to achieve greater speed.

The row over Oliveira’s elongated blades has exposed the sharp divide between disability and able-bodied running because International Paralympic Committee rules permit leg-amputee runners to alter the length of their blades within a certain range to optimise their performance.

By contrast, the International Association of Athletics Federations offers no such flexibility and has ruled that Pistorius is only eligible to run in able-bodied competition if he uses the same ‘Cheetah Flex-Foot’ blades that he has worn since he was readmitted into non-disabled competition in 2008.

Pistorius suffered his first ever 200 metres defeat when he was beaten to the gold medal by Oliveira on Sunday and immediately launched into an attack on Oliveira’s blades, saying they had grown by four inches in the past month, increasing his stride length. He also accused American bronze medallist Blake Leeper of making himself taller to boost his speed.

All three medallists wore blades supplied by Icelandic company Ossur, and its head prosthetist in the UK, Richard Hirons, confirmed that Paralympic rules allowed athletes to experiment with blade lengths.

“Oscar could have done it too at the Paralympics, but he didn’t,” said Hirons.

“The issue is not so much about length but the ability to vary length. Oscar’s blades are sanctioned by the IAAF so that he can run in able-bodied and Olympic events and he does not change them for the Paralympics. So in that respect, he’s got some parity.

“There are rules that govern the maximum body height you can have, but the other guys are able to experiment with the length to be higher or lower. So I think the issue is that at some of the events they’re turning up to, the guys may be this height or that height.

“I think Oscar’s assumption was that longer blades means longer strides and so better times. In actual fact, in sprinting mechanics, turnover and how fast you can bring your legs down is a factor as well.

“It’s different for different people but the bottom line is that if you look at the result from last night, Arnu Fourie, the first guy to finish with a single amputation, smashed the world record for single amputees by almost a second and got fourth.

“He’s not able to experiment with length because he’s got only one amputation. I think the essence of what Oscar is calling for is to have a closer look at the regulations that allow a little bit more parity in his own classification.”

Hirons confirmed that both Oliveira and Leeper were now taller than they were in the past but they were both operating within the IPC’s rules.

“The guys can move the heights up and down because they’re looking to optimise their performance,” said Hirons.

“They are acting within the rules and they are just to trying to optimise it. But it’s off-putting if you’re a competitor who decides to fix at a height or are fixed by other sanctions when you see other guys coming along at different heights.”